Chains of a Time Loop

A tunneler was a difficult thing to block. The princess's tunneler—her toenail, that is—carried her personal domain with it, and therefore it was essentially invincible unless another mage countered it with their own domain. That also required the defender's domain to overpower the attacker's, and that was far from a given.

Even so, there was a well-known repertoire of defensive tricks. Myra's plan was to build a localized air current right between the two contestants. Localized, so that nobody would know it was there—they wouldn't even feel a breeze. Her current took the shape of a moving wall, blocking any possible toenail trajectory. The idea was that it would catch the princess by surprise and sweep away the toenail before she would even realize the current existed. Skillwise, it was moderately challenging, but it was a second-year skill, so it was one that Myra had mastered.

There were some flaws in the plan, of course. It was always possible for the princess to detect the wind current with her extrasenses. It was always possible for her to try again after screwing up the first one, or even for her to regain control of the first one.

…

Well, Myra's job was to slow down the nasty trick enough for the duel to properly start. After that, it would all be on Iz.

There was no real way to know, even, that it worked. There was of course no way for her to sense the toenail, and it was too small to get a visual unless she could get a visual on it. In the end, the only clue Myra had that she accomplished anything was the princess looking thrown off for a moment, right as the match started, and a brief glance in the direction of the current.

C'mon Iz! Now's your chance! As far as Iz's dueling skills went, they had settled on a strategy that would play to her strengths, namely spatial manipulation magic. If their 'Plan A' worked, the duel could be over very quickly. Go, go, go!

Iz took the chance to throw up a barrier. It wasn't a very good one, worse even than a basic barrier Myra could have used before the whole looping business began. Then she summoned a gust of wind in an attempt to knock the princess over. Based on the past experience, this would prompt her to teleport. That was key to the plan. By contrast with the barrier, Iz's wind spell was nearly flawless, a beautiful display of her usual, prodigious level of control—

But she was slow. She was really slow. She squandered the chance she had from the princess's momentary confusion. The princess stood firm and was already in the middle of her next aggression. She sent streaks of lightning from her hands, which broke through Iz's barrier immediately. Iz had good instincts, though, and she teleported before she could get zapped.

Panicking, Iz immediately moved on to Plan B. Over seconds, two dozen lava marbles popped into the area, one by one, hanging in the air under Iz's fine control, covering the arena and surrounding both contestants. Teleporting lava was a difficult trick that Malazhonerra had previously used against Myra. Myra didn't have any idea how to do it without burning out her aura terminals. Iz, on the other hand, had bravely experimented and figured out how to do it.

Malazhonerra flinched at the sudden escalation and at the intense red heat radiating off the specks that threatened to engulf her. An expression Myra almost mistook for awe passed her face for only a second before she had to focus. Iz attacked immediately, pushing several marbles straight toward her. The princess hurried to sidestep each one.

Iz upped the pressure, sending the marbles in faster and faster as she found her rhythm. The princess, though, was like a liquid, twisting her body around each one.

She wrested telekinetic control of a couple marbles and flung them toward Iz's chest. They didn't make it to their target, each one vanishing as soon as it got close, only to reappear in a trajectory headed back to the princess. Thus began a tense back-and-forth, Malazhonerra dodging with her quick footwork, and Iz taking back control of anything that came too near her.

The equilibrium wasn't favorable to Iz. It might have looked like she was in control, the arena blanketed in the weapons of her choosing, but it was obvious to Myra that she was at the limit of her concentration, unable to up the pressure any further. Iz needed to make a play soon, or the princess—still moving deftly and effortlessly through the cloud—would make a play first.

C'mon, teleport… teleport… She silently willed the princess to make the worst possible move for herself. When Myra had fought her, it had been easy to bait her into teleporting. Iz, however, seemed to be having a hard time accomplishing the same thing. She had screwed it up at the beginning, and no matter how many shots she fired off, the princess always preferred to dodge physically.

Myra could see how Iz was trying to compensate, doing her damnest to box her opponent in. Come on, think about it like a puzzle, where can she move and where can she not, I know you can do it…

It was difficult since even when she seemed to have her surrounded, the princess could just assert her superior control, take control of a marble and create her own opening. You need to do something else, Iz…

When she finally tried something else, it was to chuck a few other spells at her: first a wind spell like earlier, then spraying a clump of dirt towards her. Neither seemed to have much effect, and even worse, Iz's misplaced attention gave the princess an opportunity to take control of most of the marbles. They accelerated towards Iz, who dodged them by warping the space around her. It seemed bad, but then—

Then the princess finally teleported.

Why did their strategy rely so much on getting the princess to teleport? The idea had started a few weeks ago, when they were working on the vault.

Myra's idea had been simple: why not just bring a redirection rod? If they set one up nearby, they could force an unsuspecting Malazhonerra outside the arena on the first occasion she took to teleport.

Iz liked the idea, but there were two problems. For one, they hadn't had the time to obtain a redirection rod, and for another, Iz seemed to feel it was pushing the rules too much. The Prerarian Code of Duels didn't forbid bringing your own lava, and technically, it didn't even forbid using time loop knowledge. It did, however, forbid hidden powerful artifices like redirection rods.

Still, Iz had liked the plan, with one amendment. Instead of bringing an actual redirection rod, she would just replicate the effect with her own aural manipulation. That was an insane Iz plan if Myra had ever heard one, but nonetheless, Iz had studied the vault's redirection rod and concluded that she could approximate some of its operation and offset a mages's teleportation by around a meter.

Myra didn't know where Malazhonerra had intended to go, only where she did actually end up. But she was shocked when she reappeared. The lava marbles were upon her, and she ducked, then she forced control over most of the marbles, throwing them towards Iz, but rather haphazardly, with imperfect control.

Iz teleported, then the princess teleported again, and then several marbles teleported. The delicate balance had snapped—both girls seemed to panic, rushing all their moves. They had another back-and-forth in a matter of seconds, both teleported again, then Malazhonerra outright froze one of the marbles approaching her.

Then there was a close call as a marble whizzed by Iz's head, and she grimaced from the intense heat.

She seemed to lose control of everything, and Myra's heart sank. The princess could see that this was her chance, and she seized the opportunity to unleash her final attack.

It was a lightning attack.

It wasn't like earlier, though. It wasn't just a few feeble streaks of electricity from her fingers, no, this was an actual bolt from the sky, crashing down without warning. She must have been charging it up the whole duel, biding her time while polarizing the atmosphere above their heads just for this one decisive move. The bright bolts engulfed Iz, showering sparks all over, and the crowd screamed.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

When it was over, Iz laid flat on the ground, while Violet Penrilla calmly announced the results of the match.

◆

It was bad, possibly worse even the stomach injury she usually got.

Myra resisted the urge to run out. She forced herself to stick to the plan she had agreed on with Iz, and she forced herself to watch the rest of the scene from her hiding spot, all while kicking herself for agreeing to come in the first place. Lightning! Of course, the princess wouldn't stop after one violent trick. She had known that, Iz had known that, they had even talked about it, but they had willingly ignored it, believing they could somehow make the duel fair—

Cynthia attended to Iz, delivering the most important first aid. The princess left with her companions, looking pissy about the situation she'd caused, and… it was the usual. After making sure that Iz was in good hands with Cynthia, she flickered out.

Numbly, she checked on Shera first, though she didn't stay long, just checked there was nothing urgent there. She (very, very cautiously) popped over to her dorm to get the second note that Ben had evidently left. It was approximately as pointless as she expected, an unhinged note about how she shouldn't 'go after Mirkas-Ballam.' Why would Ben even leave that message now? She hadn't visited Mirkas-Ballam since, like, Loop 4. Completely pointless.

She bounced around looking for Nathan. She stopped by to watch the princess's group as they stopped so she could get dressed. She couldn't hear what they were talking about, not without taking several minutes to set up an eavesdropping spell. Violet was pointing to her arm for some reason. When they were done, Violet teleported away, and the princess walked off with her maid towards the administrative building where the imperials were waiting.

She checked on Shera again, then kept looking for Nathan. She didn't have any luck. Finally, she tracked down Iz at their meeting point by the athletic field.

Iz was on her feet, though that was about all that could be said about her as she stumbled towards Myra, unsteady and frazzled. Most of her skin, especially the right half, was raw and red. Myra couldn't even guess how she had managed to escape Cynthia's caring clutches.

"Hey…" Iz rasped out.

"Iz, I'm so sorry—"

"Did you figure out how we're gonna explain this to the murk bogs?"

"What?" Myra blinked.

"My injuries. Did you figure out how we're gonna explain it? We were supposed to be off doing a simple reconnaissance task."

"Right. We'll say that it… went poorly."

Iz nodded. "Good. Let's get back to the mission."

And without more of a word on that, the pair teleported off together.

◆

The murk bogs' campus was in the wilderness between the event hall and the volcano. Overall, they had made good time. It was presently 9:10 PM, and the murk bogs were due for their regroup at 9:30 PM. Myra also knew from a previous loop that they would evacuate the camp by 10 PM. They were not doing overmuch to remain hidden—enough to fool most citizens, but probably not enough to fool imperial security measures or even most capable mages. Some evidence that their presence here was at least partially aboveboard.

"So, nothing happened while we were gone?" Iz asked.

"No," Shera confirmed. "Uh—" She gaped at Iz's obvious injuries for a second. "Uh—Uh—I've been w-watching the crate with the dismantled well the whole time. Nobody's touched it yet. Geel's barely done anything other than collect the scouting reports and play with that rubber ball he likes to carry around, but he's been cooped up in his administrative tent for a while now, asked not to be disturbed. I th-think he's planning something with the volcano, though. He sent Chrysji and a bunch of the inner circle guys to scout it out."

"Oh. That's interesting." She looked at Iz, who seemed equally intrigued by this.

"Uh—" Shera continued to look questioningly at Iz's injuries, and when this got awkward, she just went on. "One th-thing you might want to know is that Geel made the whole contract available." She pointed at a tree next to the administrative tent, which had several sheets of paper glued to the trunk. "I checked it out, and it's pretty much what Geel told us last night, just longer and wordier." (Shera, of course, could easily understand Unkmirean both in writing and speech now that she could use the Common Library translation facilities, resolving a long-standing challenge in the girls' spycraft.)

Myra went to confirm what Shera said. Sure enough, the contract mostly called for them to observe and only intervene should an exceptional circumstance occur.

"That really is an obscene amount of money," Myra muttered, looking over the terms.

Iz scratched her head. "Why did they post it up like this…?"

The exact intervention depended on the circumstance, but in most cases, it would involve extracting the Unkmirean King and his associates: the Cultural Minister Lluruma, and the two men who had hired the murk bogs in the first place, General Kyeren and General Jenola. This included damaging the event hall in order to force the spatial reconnection. (Would that even work? Myra hadn't forgotten about the evidence suggesting the event hall's failsafe had been sabotaged. But she still had no idea what was going on there.)

Myra pulled over the contents for another minute. "Honestly it's pretty useful to have this all spelled out," Myra said. "Think about it. When the disasters start around 12:40 AM, the murk bogs would almost certainly take that as an impetus to act. That probably disrupts the culprit's plan with the event hall. So the culprit has a clear interest in… diverting the murk bogs towards something else."

"And how do they accomplish that?" Iz asked.

"… Something to do with the well? Geel decided to bring the well after getting that phone call. The question is who or what are they forgetting? How are they made to forget about the entire mission?"

"They're not forgetting anyone or anything," Iz said. "Even if your theory about the Unkmirean abyss is right, we aren't in Unkmire."

"They brought the well with them!"

"Crucially, they did not bring the Unkmirean abyss with them."

"Right… Whatever, we'll figure it out soon. Shera, is there anything else?"

"I don't th-think so."

"Well, I guess we have some time to kill." Myra checked her watch. It was 9:20 PM.

"Are you all going to tell me what happened at the d-duel?" Shera finally asked.

Iz gestured to her burn marks. "I lost," she said plainly. "We'll need to try a more aggressive strategy next time. That's pretty much it."

"But how? What happened in the fight?"

"Is it important?"

"Yes, I want to know how it went," Shera pressed on, folding her arms. "Did you learn anything? How d-did they act?"

"All right, all right." Iz sighed. "I asked if I could have her wristwatch, and she said no, it's some important secret imperial thing. Then I asked about her pendant. She got really mad about it, and we dueled. I managed to avoid getting sliced in half, we fought with the lava marbles for a while, I finally got the princess to teleport, but the trick didn't work as well as we'd hoped. She hit me with lightning and won. And, oh yeah, the princess made a pass at me." She looked at Myra. "You never mentioned she makes a pass at me."

"She's never done that before!" Myra cried. "She usually just acts like she wants to bite your head off!"

"W-wow," Shera said.

"No! Not like—I mean, she usually just insults your background and tries to goad you into a fight!"

Iz ran a hand through her hair. "Well, warn me about it next time. I don't want to be caught off guard by that. By the way, did you catch Violet Penrilla looking over when you made your air current? I'm pretty sure she noticed it."

"Huh. No, I didn't catch that."

"She's sharp. What the hell's her deal, anyway? Why is she so enthusiastic about the duel?"

"I don't know. She's obviously just a nasty cunt like the princess—"

"I want to meet her."

"You want to meet her," Myra said deadpan. "That cheerleading little rat."

"You know what I mean. I want to investigate her. You said you were able to befriend—or, you know, spend time with her once, right?"

"Yeah, we went bowling…"

"Right. Do that again. Bring me along this time." She'd been along the last time, but Myra obviously knew what she meant.

"Fine. What are you thinking, exactly?"

"I think—" She frowned. "I don't know what I think about her. But I'd bet that house I'll never get from Malazhonerra Raine that Violet knows a lot about the political background of this whole mess. If we can pry anything out of her, it'll be a huge help."

"All right. I'll introduce you to her."

Iz nodded. "Good."

◆

The girls poked around a bit. Geel was busy in his tent, and there were various enchantments to prevent snooping. They found Roc, who was as depressive and lethargic as usual, slouched and staring straight at the ground. They tried to talk to him, but he was unresponsive, refusing to even look up at them.

"Hey! You three, rune girls!" As they were idling around, they were approached by none other than Obyl. "Geel wants to see ya for your scouting report."

"Oh, right. He seemed busy earlier," Myra explained quickly. She glanced at Iz and remembered her earlier question. Right, how am I gonna explain all this?

"Yeah, he's been busy meeting up with some spontaneous new client or some such." He grinned. "Sounds like we're gonna be getting an unexpected payday."

The girls looked at each other.

Finally.

So there it is. The piece that turns this whole thing around. This ends with the murk bogs abandoning their job to celebrate and loot the town. With them forgetting what they even came here to do.

"C-could it be the culprit?" Shera whispered. She looked anxiously at the administrative tent. "Are they still here? I d-dunno if we should show ourselves."

Myra hesitated. "He wants our scouting reports. That means whoever he was talking to is probably gone, right?"

"I… I guess so."

"Well, we've come this far." She steeled herself and approached the administrative tent.

She entered through the front door flap, and she came face-to-face with the new clients.

Benkoten Talzatta stood in the middle of the tent, together with the mountain crew, including the old guy who seemed to be the leader, the yeti, and a handful of others. Geel stood behind his desk, on which there sat an eye-catching metal trunk packed to the brim with gold and gemstones.

Geel tilted his head, a thin smile on his lips.